Netflix finds growth secret overseas

Media consumers all over the world are were craving to sign up for Netflix online video and original content, fact revealed by the company’s latest numbers.

According to CNET, in the last quarter of 2015, the service was made available in countries like Japan, Spain, Portugal and Italy, followed by another wave of countries this month. Currently, Netflix is available across 130 countries, covering basically all territories, except China and North Korea.

2015 was definitely one of the best years for the movie streaming company

The same period of 2015 brought 5.59 million members, helping the streaming website to surpass its expectations, as they were predicting 5.15 million new subscribers, as stated by the above-mentioned source. As for the first quarter of 2016, Netflix expects another 6 million members to join the club.

Still, this might not be just good news for the streaming company, since it appears to be close to reaching a saturation point. In Q4 2015, 1.56 new members registered, which isn’t a big number, considering that back in 2014, 1.9 million members signed in the same period.

As for this year’s predictions, Neflix expects 1.75 million subscribers until the end of March. Once again, it’s a pessimistic expectation, since 2,28 million members registered in the first three months in 2015. “Our high penetration in the US seems to be making net additions harder than in the past,” an official statement said.

Netflix is currently having issues, due to a low returning subscribers rate

Finally, it will be relatively hard to register returning subscribers, thanks to the new debit and credit cards, with built-in chips. In October, Netflix claimed that these new cards, with updated expiration dates, can seriously affect their business.

Despite all these problems, the company’s shares rose above 8 percent in after-hours trading. Also, the total profit was $43.2 million ( 10 cents per share), on $1.82 billion in revenue, surpassing analysts’ expectations, of just 2 cents per share.